{"id":29859,"date":"2018-05-20T17:24:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-20T17:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29859"},"modified":"2018-05-20T17:24:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-20T17:24:48","slug":"trump-gets-it-right-apparently-with-new-va-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=29859","title":{"rendered":"Trump gets it right — apparently — with new VA pick"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

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How about this?<\/p>\n

Donald J. Trump has nominated a proven administrator to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Yep, Robert Wilkie is the acting VA secretary who’s been filling in since the firing of David Shulkin in March over Shulkin’s expensive travel habits.<\/p>\n

The president turned first to the White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, to lead the VA. This, despite Dr. Jackson’s lack of administrative experience. Then came allegations of some bad behavior: hostile workplace, over-prescribing of medicine and — oops! — drinking on the job.<\/p>\n

Out went Jackson.<\/p>\n

Now the president has selected Wilkie<\/a>. Man, I hope he sails through the U.S. Senate confirmation process and is able to assume the role formally that he has been performing for the past three months.<\/p>\n

Let’s not just yet put this nomination in the bank. Trump’s inability to vet these nominees has gotten him into trouble.<\/p>\n

The president didn’t vet Jackson’s past adequately before nominating him to lead the VA.<\/p>\n

The VA is a huge federal agency that needs an experienced hand to lead it. The agency also needs someone who is clean, ethical, sharp and has the veterans’ issues at the top of his mind at all times.<\/p>\n

I am one of those 20 million veterans who is enrolled in the agency’s medical care program. Therefore, I demand a careful selection process when choosing a veterans affairs secretary.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I will hope Robert Wilkie is the right man for the job. It’s good that senators on both sides of the aisle are much more enthusiastic about Wilkie than they were about Jackson.<\/p>\n

My first benchmark for the correctness of this selection is whether Wilkie will reject the notion of privatizing VA functions.<\/p>\n

Do not go there. Ever!<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How about this? Donald J. Trump has nominated a proven administrator to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. Yep, Robert Wilkie is the acting VA secretary who’s been filling in since the firing of David Shulkin in March over Shulkin’s expensive travel habits. The president turned first to the White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, … Continue reading Trump gets it right — apparently — with new VA pick<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[1356,1424,7719,5077],"class_list":["post-29859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-military-news","category-national-news","tag-department-of-veterans-affairs","tag-donald-trump","tag-ronny-jackson","tag-va"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29861,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29859\/revisions\/29861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}